Hysteria June 4, 2013

I always thought of T.S. Eliot as a cold British fish, something served at breakfast with the bangers and weak tea. The distraction of “the shaking of her breasts” changed that opinion a little.

Hysteria
BY T. S. ELIOT
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty green iron table, saying: “If the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden …” I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.
Source: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1920)

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